In a series of narrow votes reflecting conflicting visions of the city’s future, the City Council approved the housing, land use and transportation elements of the revised Draft General Plan on Tuesday.
-more-

BEVERLY HILLS — Dick Clark filed a $10 million lawsuit Wednesday against Recording Academy President Michael Greene, accusing him of barring artists who appear first on Clark’s American Music Awards from performing during the Grammy Awards.
-more-

SACRAMENTO — California may need a quarter-cent sales tax increase to help pay the cost of responding to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, legislators said Wednesday, even as they called on the federal government to cover the bulk of the new precautions.
-more-

RIVERSIDE — A woman said she heard a gunshot on her ranch moments before spotting one of two suspects in the slaying of a 16-year-old Las Vegas girl, whose body was later found on the Southern California property, a detective testified Wednesday.
-more-

TUCSON, Ariz. — Environmental scientists from around the world are supporting a plan for the U.S. Department of Energy to team with Columbia University to use Biosphere 2 for climate research, its director said.
-more-

The Berkeley Police Department and the Berkeley Fire Department were called to the 1700 block of McGee Avenue at around 9 a.m. Wednesday after a woman found a suspicious white powdery substance in her driveway.
-more-

Researchers say they have discovered the key component in red wine that explains the so-called French Paradox, or the way the French can eat lots of cheese, buttery sauces and other rich foods and still suffer less heart disease than Americans.
-more-

SAN JOSE — With their $22.2 billion merger threatened, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Compaq Computer Corp. fired back Wednesday with a 50-page report detailing their reasons for the deal and criticizing leading opponent Walter Hewlett.
-more-

SAN JOSE — The number of people who have high-speed Internet connections at home grew to a record 21.3 million in November, a 90 percent increase over the same month last year, according to a report.
-more-

PHILADELPHIA — Lawyers for Mumia Abu-Jamal said Wednesday they will ask a federal appeals court to grant him a new trial, expressing dismay that a judge upheld the former Black Panther’s 1982 conviction for murdering a police officer while throwing out his death sentence.
-more-

Berkeley High School students called on the district to put effective leadership in place at their school and to address the “achievement gap” separating white and minority students, during a student forum on small schools held Tuesday.
-more-

It’s 1:30 p.m. on a chilly afternoon at the south end of Aquatic Park, and about 15 men are engaging in a long-standing tradition in the remote and secluded area – cruising for casual sex with strangers.
-more-

Fears that a federal arts grant to the Berkeley Repertory Theatre might be denied on political grounds were dispelled on Tuesday, when the National Endowment for the Arts reported the theater was among the winners of its latest round of grants.
-more-

OAKLAND – There was standing-room-only Monday night as local candidates campaigned for endorsements from the Political Action Committee of the National Women’s Political Caucus, Alameda North Chapter.
-more-

The California Housing Finance Agency is loaning millions of dollars to Berkeley and 15 other California cities, including Oakland, to help create affordable housing opportunities for low-income residents.
-more-

SAN FRANCISCO — Advancements have been made in the fight against the vine-killing disease threatening California’s $33 billion wine industry, including the development of grapevines genetically engineered to be resistant to it.
-more-

SAN FRANCISCO — The California AIDS Ride, a feel-good event in which 11,000 cyclists have raised $40 million since 1994, is being abandoned by the nonprofit agencies it benefits. They say it’s unacceptable they get only 50 cents of every dollar raised.
-more-

SAN FRANCISCO — The parents of John Walker Lindh, the 20-year-old American captured in Afghanistan alongside Taliban fighters, are upset that a letter they sent him through the Red Cross has not been delivered.
-more-

SACRAMENTO — The San Francisco Bay area produced nearly a third of the marijuana plants seized in California this fall, eclipsing the 16 percent seized in the North Coast’s “Emerald Triangle” area that once accounted for the majority of the locally grown crop.
-more-

SAN FRANCISCO — Makers and sellers of chewing tobacco have agreed to pay $2.75 million and post signs warning of smokeless products’ health hazards in stores to settle a suit, San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne said Tuesday.
-more-

LOS ANGELES — In another sign that Hispanics will dominate California’s future, a university study has found that the ethnic group accounted for nearly half of all births in the state by the end of the last decade.
-more-

PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge threw out Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence Tuesday and ordered a new sentencing hearing for the former Black Panther alternately portrayed as a vicious cop-killer and a victim of a racist frame-up.
-more-

SAN JOSE — The leading opponent of Hewlett-Packard’s plans to buy Compaq Computer Corp. is demanding that HP clarify reports that directors and top executives would step down if shareholders reject the $22 billion deal.
-more-

SALT LAKE CITY — In 1990, the idea of linking the central Wasatch Range’s seven ski areas came up in Salt Lake County planning circles and was rejected. Aerial trams over the top of the Wasatch and a tunnel through the range did not make much sense for the skiing public, although someone was sure to get rich off the scheme, recall those who participated in the debate.
-more-

After months of parent complaints, school officials reassigned a first grade teacher at Washington Communications and Technology Magnet School to another job in the district Friday afternoon, according to several people familiar with the move.
-more-

After more than two years of public meetings and workshops, the City Council is expected to approve three sections of the Draft General Plan tonight. In question, however, is whether the council will move forward on four other proposed amendments, put forward by Ecocity Builders.
-more-

A pedestrian was reportedly hit by a car Friday morning at the intersection of Russell Street and Claremont Avenue, the very spot where flags had been placed with much fanfare the day before in order to make pedestrians more visible as they cross the street.
-more-

Sales for durable goods rose an amazing 12.8 percent during the month of October 2001, the largest-ever increase in sales in U.S. history. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Consumer Index Report,(http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/m3/adv/priorrel.htm) the vast majority of those purchases (more than 9 percent, or $15.3 billion) were the sale of cars and trucks. The bulk of those sales were for pick-up trucks and sport utility vehicles, or SUVs.
-more-

Among the issues the City Council will consider during its last meeting of the year will be an authorization for the city manager to increase a contract with Eden Council for Hope and Opportunity, Inc. by $50,000 to run the city’s Homelessness Prevention Program. The HPP program has already exhausted its annual $110,000 per year allocation due to an increase of clients.
-more-

ATLANTA — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began training state and local health officials Monday on how to recognize smallpox and quickly contain an outbreak spread by terrorists.
-more-

When Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced the closure of its Tritium facility last September, many city officials and residents breathed a sigh of relief. But now a neighborhood organization is raising concerns about how the laboratory will dispose of left over radioactive and chemically toxic materials.
-more-

SACRAMENTO – A Sacramento publisher’s commencement speech was drowned out by hecklers after she began speaking about threats to civil liberties posed by the federal government’s investigation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
-more-

SAN FRANCISCO – Burning Man organizers do not understand why the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has doubled fees over the past three years for those wishing to attend the popular festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.
-more-

The Berkeley Democratic Club, home to the moderate wing of the city’s Democratic Party, overwhelmingly endorsed Charles Ramsey for the 14th State Assembly District seat and Jacki Fox Ruby for the Alameda County Board of Education on Thursday. Both candidates are up for election in March.
-more-

Saturday, Dec. 15

A recent exhibit at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum explored the concept of environmentally responsible architecture. The buildings presented in the exhibit were designed and built within the past few years and their design was distinctly contemporary.
-more-

When it comes to Northern California dominance, the Berkeley High girls’ basketball team is usually right up there with De La Salle football. But although the Spartans won yet another NorCal title this season, times may be changing for the Lady ’Jackets.
-more-

Following are some local-serving community agencies that can use financial and/or volunteer help. The Daily Planet is listing these nonprofits as a public service and does not have first-hand knowledge of the work of most of the agencies.-more-

CASTRO VALLEY — Within a 10-month period in 1999, three women who worked in the same office at Eden Medical Center were diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer, a very rare and aggressive type of the disease that strikes just a few dozen women in the Bay Area every year.
-more-

Q. Roy asks: Help! I recently moved into a house that has a wooden front door with a large oval window, which takes up most of the door. In the past two months a gap has slowly formed and grown between the door and the window molding. It is about 3/4 of an inch at the top of the window and tapers down as it follows the contours of the window. You can see through it to the outside. It appears that the window is settling. Is this possible? What can I do to fix it? Is there a caulk I should use, or will I have to replace my front door?
-more-

RALEIGH, N.C. — A death row inmate who is said to have the mind of a first-grader became the first person to have his sentence reduced under a new North Carolina law barring execution of the mentally retarded.
-more-

BALTIMORE — A public relations firm is under fire for inviting students with only straight, chemically processed or short hair to appear in a TV commercial for historically black Morgan State University.
-more-

LOS ANGELES — The number of Californians out of work topped 1 million for the first time in nearly five years in November, as increasing job cuts in the state comprised a disproportionately large amount of the national total, officials said Friday.
-more-

LOS ANGELES — Media mogul Barry Diller could emerge as head of Universal Studios if Vivendi Universal buys the film and TV assets of Diller’s USA Networks, sources familiar with the negotiations said Friday.
-more-

Dangerous playground equipment, exposed piping and moldy bathroom floors are just a few of the safety hazards at LeConte School that parents and principal Patricia Saddler have been urging the district to fix for months.
-more-

Berkeley High girls’ soccer coach Suzanne Sillett intentionally scheduled a very tough pre-league schedule for her team this year, intending to get the young ’Jackets ready for ACCAL play. But if the first two games are any indication, Sillett didn’t need to worry too much.
-more-

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Cal swimmer Natalie Coughlin was named the female November 2001 Athlete and Team of the Month Award winner for athletic accomplishments during the month by the United States Olympic Committee on Wednesday.
-more-

Jolyn Warford, Regional Marketing Coordinator for Whole Foods, said she provided the Planet with inaccurate information for its Dec. 5 story, “Protesters say hemp is food not drugs.” Warford said that, contrary to her previous statements, Whole Foods will continue to stock hemp food despite a new federal regulation banning the products. She said Whole Foods does not believe hemp food contains enough THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, to justify the ban.
-more-

Citing a “conflict of interest,” the federal court judge presiding over the trial of Vijay and Prasad Lakireddy, sons of jailed Berkeley landlord Lakireddy Bali Reddy, has handed the case to a colleague.
-more-

SAN FRANCISCO — Scientists are uncertain how much of the carbon dioxide given off naturally each year within the North American ecosystem is reabsorbed by that system, complicating calculations of the net effect of human activities on emissions of the greenhouse gas.
-more-

SAN FRANCISCO — NASA will cease communicating with its Deep Space 1 spacecraft on Tuesday, ending a three-year mission capped in September when the probe imaged what may be the darkest object in the solar system.
-more-

SACRAMENTO — The California Department of Corrections said Thursday it will pay for the legal defense of three current correctional officers and one former employee accused in a pending federal civil rights lawsuit.
-more-

ATLANTA — Smoking is more common in the Midwest and South than other parts of the nation, while Orange County has the lowest rate in the country, the government said Thursday in its first city-by-city study of tobacco use.
-more-

HONOLULU — Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are such a tiny minority in the United States that only seven states count them as more than one-tenth of a percent of the population, according to a 2000 census report released Thursday.
-more-

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — With a heavy snow in the mountains, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has decided to release a small amount of irrigation water to some farmers who typically leave their fields flooded in the winter.
-more-

ELKO, Nev. — The mother of a teen-ager who was slain by a Bureau of Indian Affairs police officer said the officer shot her unarmed son in the back after a struggle at their home on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation.
-more-

RENO, Nev. — Executives behind the largest maker of cat litter in the world figured they’d found the perfect place for a West Coast mine and processing plant when they discovered premium clay deposits in a high-desert valley north of Reno.
-more-

SAN JOSE — Charges will be dropped against a Russian computer programmer accused of violating electronic-book copyrights in exchange for his testimony in the trial of his company, ending part of a case that has generated worldwide protests.
-more-

Watching a smiling Osama bin Laden assess the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a man who was in the World Trade Center that day said he wanted to smash his TV screen. Said a Marine who also watched bin Laden, “He needs to be taken out.”
-more-